VIM. PIMAN INDIANS OF THE SONORAN DESERT
523
Similarly, the two-village people practiced what agriculture was possible
within the limits of their technology and with the lack of perennial streams
within their domain. And the riverine peoples, who were able to plant the
biggest crops, were also able to plant the biggest and most permanent villages. Added to this was the successively greater abundance in wild plant
and animal resources moving from west toward east and into the river
vally perimeters.
There is perhaps another lesson to be learned here, one that is still vague
and considerably more abstract. This stems from observations made as
early as the mid-1890's (McGee, 1895) to very recent times that: "In
arid regions there has been much less competition [among plants]. The
greatest 'struggle' of the plants has not been with one another, but with
the environment. Therefore the conditions tending toward the elimination
of certain types and the survival and dominance of a relatively uniform
one have not been operative" (Shreve and Wiggins, 1964, p. 27). This
view has been echoed recently by another botanist, who writes, ". . . thus
far all information reported indicates that there is among individual plants
no competition which regulates the composition of the desert flora, but
that it rather is the growth regulation independent of the neighboring plants
of different species" (Went, 1969, p. 230).
In short, cooperation rather than competition seems to be a key word
in the understanding of desert plant communities, and if my reading of
Piman history and ethnography is correct, the Pimans, as another part of
the desert fauna, seem to have understood this well. They used their environment but never usurped it.
The Spaniards, and ultimately other non-Indians of European extraction, introduced innumerable changes among Pimans. Cattle, horses, goats,
and sheep were brought in; wheat became an important crop; and money
supplanted salt and ceremonial songs as a medium of exchange. A whole
new technology based in the final analysis on coal and iron, neither of
which is native to the Sonoran Desert, made it possible to tap deep supplies
of underground fossil water, to build all-weather roads, and to make gasoline-powered transportation on them the mode of the day.
But Piman origins are not altogether lost in this great desert. Tucson,
Phoenix, Caborca, and Magdalena—the largest urban centers in southern
Arizona and northern Sonora—are riverine settlements which, save for
Phoenix, were once Piman villages. Tucson and Caborca, indeed, are
Piman-derived words, as is "Arizona." The railroads and superhighways
which link these cities follow the river-paralleling routes used for many
millenia.
The central area of Pimeria today belongs to Papago and Mexican cattlemen, and in spite of deep wells and a cash economy, the region remains
523
Similarly, the two-village people practiced what agriculture was possible
within the limits of their technology and with the lack of perennial streams
within their domain. And the riverine peoples, who were able to plant the
biggest crops, were also able to plant the biggest and most permanent villages. Added to this was the successively greater abundance in wild plant
and animal resources moving from west toward east and into the river
vally perimeters.
There is perhaps another lesson to be learned here, one that is still vague
and considerably more abstract. This stems from observations made as
early as the mid-1890's (McGee, 1895) to very recent times that: "In
arid regions there has been much less competition [among plants]. The
greatest 'struggle' of the plants has not been with one another, but with
the environment. Therefore the conditions tending toward the elimination
of certain types and the survival and dominance of a relatively uniform
one have not been operative" (Shreve and Wiggins, 1964, p. 27). This
view has been echoed recently by another botanist, who writes, ". . . thus
far all information reported indicates that there is among individual plants
no competition which regulates the composition of the desert flora, but
that it rather is the growth regulation independent of the neighboring plants
of different species" (Went, 1969, p. 230).
In short, cooperation rather than competition seems to be a key word
in the understanding of desert plant communities, and if my reading of
Piman history and ethnography is correct, the Pimans, as another part of
the desert fauna, seem to have understood this well. They used their environment but never usurped it.
The Spaniards, and ultimately other non-Indians of European extraction, introduced innumerable changes among Pimans. Cattle, horses, goats,
and sheep were brought in; wheat became an important crop; and money
supplanted salt and ceremonial songs as a medium of exchange. A whole
new technology based in the final analysis on coal and iron, neither of
which is native to the Sonoran Desert, made it possible to tap deep supplies
of underground fossil water, to build all-weather roads, and to make gasoline-powered transportation on them the mode of the day.
But Piman origins are not altogether lost in this great desert. Tucson,
Phoenix, Caborca, and Magdalena—the largest urban centers in southern
Arizona and northern Sonora—are riverine settlements which, save for
Phoenix, were once Piman villages. Tucson and Caborca, indeed, are
Piman-derived words, as is "Arizona." The railroads and superhighways
which link these cities follow the river-paralleling routes used for many
millenia.
The central area of Pimeria today belongs to Papago and Mexican cattlemen, and in spite of deep wells and a cash economy, the region remains